Five Moons

“To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.”
— Paul Shepard

1.
Even the dead become art—
nothing here needs burial, not
the bone tree, nor metal magnolias
blooming. Not the skin of dust.

It’s the earth that’s a shadow.
A pint is a pound, the world
round defies meaning here—
We slant into a waterless horizon.

And the horses say, cloppity clop.
The moon, a gnome’s ass.
Nothing is as it seems.
Everything is as it seems.

2.
The question mark
of a collar bone,
the flash under skin,
thin and tight like a tent.

Dust soaks our eyes.
Without the usual
borders, gravity
has pulled from us
even our names.

3.
Drift on a lifeboat,
a submarine, a magic carpet.
The sun rises, red and ripe

like a plum. We sit together,
pass the blue bottle. The beat
of a distant drum echoes

across the ancient lake bed,
the pink glow burns mirthless
in our eyes. How I’ve grown
afraid of myself.